ng at a broad
guess.

"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" said Elder Skates.

No reply.

"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" he repeated faithfully.

At this point, one of a row of small boys on the back seat, no more
capable of appreciating this critical period of the Sunday-school than
the broad-faced sculpin fish which he resembled, took an alder-leaf
from his pocket and, lifting it to his mouth, popped it, with an
explosion so successful and loud that it startled even himself.

His guardian (aunt), who sat directly in front of him, though deaf,
heard some echo of this note; and seeing the sudden glances directed
their way, she turned and, observing the look of frozen horror and
surprise upon his features, said severely, "You stop that sithing"
(sighing).

Delighted at this full and unexpected escape from guilt and its
consequences, the sculpin embraced his fellow-sculpins with such
ecstasy that he fell off from his seat, upon the floor.

His aunt, turning again, and having no doubt as to his position this
time, lifted him and restored him to his place with a determination so
pronounced that the act in itself was clearly audible.

"You set your spanker-beam down there now, and keep still!" she said.

Elber Skates took advantage of this providential disturbance to slide
on to the next question:

"How can we escape trouble?"

No reply.

"How can we escape trouble?" he meekly and patiently repeated.

"Good Lord, Skates!" said Captain Pharo, and put his hand in his pocket
for his pipe, but bethought himself, and withdrew it, with a deep sigh.

Elder Skates had looked at him with hope, but now again mechanically
reiterated:

"How--can--we--escape--trouble?"

"We can't! we can't no way in this world!" said Captain Pharo. "Where
in h--ll did you scrape up them questions, Skates? Escape trouble? Be
you a married man, Skates? I'd always reckoned ye was! Poo! poo!
Hohum! Wal--wal--never mind--

[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or the morn-ing flow'r. The blight--'"]

He bethought himself again of his surroundings, spat far out of the
window as a melancholy resource, and was silent.

Elder Skates, alarmed and staggered, looked softly down his list of
questions for something vaguely impersonal, widely abstract, and now
lit upon it with a smile.

"What is the meaning of 'Alphy and Omegy'?" he said--and waited, weary
but safe.

But at the second repetition of this inscrutable conundrum, a lank and
tall girl